Mega City One

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

New types of mega structures for more efficient containment and gaining total control of the human race. You are part of a special unit of the rebels in search for a lost Xen crystal, which the Combine need to initialize the final phase.

Basic Details

Title: Mega City One

Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-mega-city-one-v1.2.7z

Size : 173MB

Author: Abdulhamid Cayirli AKA crowbar

Date Released: 08 January 2017

Author’s Note

Loosely Inspired by movies such as “Dredd” (2012), but also with influences from the original Tomb Raider and Resident Evil.

All of this might sound like a wild combination of entirely different genres, but it will provide a rollercoaster ride with variety rivaling the main games.

This mod started from single maps I created for the Hammer Cup 2016 of RunThinkShootLive, which were all reworked, remade and improved based on all the feedback I collected with each mapping challenge. In addition there are brand new maps connecting the other ones, with a story-line that overarches the whole mod.

Environment
From what I could see in description and trailer, it seemed very intriguing. Maybe my interest was mainly caused by my liking of the new remake of original Judge Dredd. I expected a little bit more of that, especialy in the last portion of the story. It was a bit of wasted potential as the Half life 2 style of gameplaay would very benefit from tight corridors of very poor housing segment in lower floors, and then going higher with hiearchy of the entire block. I have a huge personal problem with the way the levels connect to each other, but since it was meant as compilation of multiple entries, I will get it a free pass, as I now know how energy consuming might the entry become.

Gameplay
Generaly it was okay gameplay with some interesting ideas, most of which came from different Ville themes. The begining of the mod was a little frustrating at start, with some difficulty spikes, but that could be caused by my overal “rustyness”, as I’m not really sure if anyone else struggled through those parts. On the other side I aprriciate usage of scripted crash for gunship as it feels to me that this very easy to implement fuction is very underused and it adds alot of satisfaction for player. Finale battle was a bit repetive but there is only so much to do when you work with source (Also I feel that creator just wanted to be done with it already), It could’ve been a little bit more like the legendary Blast pit

In conclusion, if you played all the entries one by one, then you can play it for comparison, or some updates to some areas. If you haven’t played it then I would gladly recommend it for those seeking some chalange and lenght. I can’t recommend it to those who seek Dredd locality or some complicated storytelling.

I’m rating this 3/5, basicaly because it never really gives up feeling of being just a map pack.

But even without my complete satisfaction, I have to congratulate author on getting into multiple gaming sites, even in countries like my very own Czech republic. Keep up the work of spreading the mods around !

Right, lets review Mega City One … ! I’ve played version 1.0 so some things I point may have already been fixed/altered. This mod is pretty long and offers quite some gameplay. It contains almost all the Ville entries made by Crowbar in 2016 and these are more or less sewn together in Mega City One, while there are also some new areas/maps.

Visuals:
In general decent. I especially liked the rainy apartment courtyard with the shiny tiled walls and the architecture of the buildings, but the street preceeding that area was also good-looking with detailed buildings and the giant Combine structure towering above the city. The (Ancient) Dust part at the beginning also deserves a positive mention. However, while certain parts of the Ravens/Raven Mansion map looked really atmospheric, other parts looked unfinished and bugged. All in all, I would rate Mega City One 7/10 purely based on visuals.

Gameplay
Starting with a mere 25 Health while attacked by multiple Antlions made me quickly realise that Mega City One was going to be a tough one. After I adapted my usual playing style, I managed to proceed throughout the mod in Medium without an excessive number of deaths. Though I really drove myself in a corner with a very badly timed quicksave (not the authors fault ofc … !: https://youtu.be/evqqXSVc5NQ?t=6m35s

The situation with the Sniper that killed the Urby guy was a rather tricky one; if I recall correctly, I only had 4 grenades at my disposal to dispatch the Sniper. Though the chances are low, you might run out of grenades and the situation in the street really could turn against you. Especially with two Hunters joining the party. Enemy activity in the Combine structure was sometimes harsh and I died many times (my own screw-up with the autosave excluded … !). While the final phase of Mega City One offers multiple Hunters without any cover available, it is actually possible to win the fight relatively unscathed; running sideways to dodge the flechettes and the Hunters themselves charging towards you is an effective solution.

Mega City One isn’t flawless but personally I enjoyed this mod in general, although I understand the criticism it has received. This mod is definitely an interesting one, but casual players in particular might want to consider turning the difficuly down to Easy … !

I am not related to Crowbar, who is a modder and a good one. I am just a consumer of the great mods I have downloaded here over the last few years. Naturally I have played all of the Villes and nearly all of the mods on the site. I applaud Crowbar for doing what I wish all the mod authors would do — following-up on their mods and making them better, longer, or integrated in a longer mod.

If you have not played the related Villes, this is a hands-down Play It Now! Shucks, even if you have. It has some really great parts.

Thanks, Crowbar, for all you have contributed and I hope to play more of your mods in the future.

Mega City One is a frenetic, challenging mod with some new ideas. It was difficult for me to choose between a “Play It Now” and “Play It Later” because it had both a lot of really fun moments and a lot of frustrations. I wish I would have kept track of my playing time, but if I had to give an estimate it would be something like five to six hours.

To me, the concept of taking entries from Ville challenges and combining them into a single linear storyline with a play length similar to that of Episode One is really exciting. I love the idea of creating mods out of entries because even the best Ville maps feel as though they are just part of some larger game that we usually never get to see.

There are positives and negatives to the way the mod was made from smaller maps. Some transitions were handled very well, others felt more jarring. Overall I was left with a positive impression. Some transitions felt pretty natural, like when the player is abducted by the Combine or taking a train ride to the Mega Structure. There’s a teleporter sequence that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me in terms of the story but functioned as an excellent level transition. The only level transitions that really felt jarring were the first two, the first being between an ancient ruins environment and a Dark Souls inspired environment where the climate and architecture seemed to change noticeably. The second was sort of a room that led from the Dark Souls area into a more Half-Life 2-esque road.

The premise of the mod was intriguing: You are a rebel agent trying to recover a Xen crystal before the Combine can. Unfortunately, most of the mod is spent trekking between the first chapter and the last chapter. The titular city isn’t even introduced until the second to last chapter. The story was interesting but very minimal. Ultimately I found the ending to be totally unsatisfactory, which is a shame because the sequences leading up to it were very well done.

Some aspects of the story were confusing. I’m not entirely sure if the player is supposed to be Gordon Freeman or when the mod takes place in relation to the Half-Life games. I assumed that the player was a new rebel character, but I thought I remembered another character referring to me as Gordon. The most confusing part was the chapter Ravens, in which the player is trapped in a mansion by Father Grigori. Is this Father Grigori the same character from Half-Life 2? If so, why would he attack the player, especially if you are Gordon Freeman? More importantly, why would he have a teleporter? And why would the teleporter be linked to the rebel teleporter in the Mega City? So many questions.

My favorite chapter was the final chapter, Citizen. It had a lot of common elements with its Ville predecessor, Mega Structure, but it seems like Crowbar completely recreated it from the ground up. It made use of new gameplay elements, grenade traps and destructible floors, and it introduced the citizens as a hostile NPC. Normally, Citizens aren’t good to use as enemies because they were designed to be companions to the player and have nearly perfect accuracy and take too much damage. However, the way they were laid out in squads of two with one SMG and one Pistol felt very balanced and satisfying. It was like fighting an entirely new enemy type. The environment and visuals of the final chapter were also really novel and interesting.

One unique aspect of Mega City One was its use of dynamic music. I thought it was an excellent innovation that borrowed from other games like Portal and made the music sync up with combat encounters much more smoothly, with only a few hiccups here and there. I would love to play more mods with this feature.

My biggest complaint about Mega City One has nothing to do with the way it was made from Ville entries. My frustration was with the difficulty. Playing the game on Normal, I frequently had to replay sections. I was able to manage but at one point during Ravens I had an autosave right before I died that I couldn’t recover from. I ended up using give item_healthkit. The extreme difficulty of the last few chapters was balanced out by the novelty of the most difficult encounters but I found it sort of hard to get through the second and third chapters.

I wish that Mega City One had a more focused narrative but ultimately it provided new environments and a lot of great moments. It is definitely worth a playthrough, if only on Easy. I really hope that Mega City One inspires other mappers to expand their maps into full-scale mods.

About your story questions: Imagine this as an alternate timeline to Half-Life 2. That isn’t the same Grigori, you are not the same Freeman. If I could I would use a different model and voice for Grigori but this is what I had.

The teleporter has a simple explanation but I know it is not very well coneyed in the mod. That Mansion was kinda a rebel refuge/hideout. They have teleporters to other hideouts, but this one was found by the combine and swarmed with headcrabs.

First of all this is a great mod, not the best, but a good one.
The level design is good, the lighting is good, the FX are good…
However some part of game-play are hard. (maybe because I’m a noob…) In my opinion, the use of Zombine must be not too often… This mod use them too often, and they’re pretty hard to kill, and are really annoying when there are lots of zombies around you and they activate there grenades.
The transition of maps are sometimes good, and some other times bad.(But in majority good!)
There are really good mechanic of game-play btw!

In conclusion:

If you have time to spent, you should try this mod!WARNING: if you are a salty and a bad player , play on easy.

Note to Crowbar:

I don’t know if you’ll read this, but if you do I want to say:
•You’re a great mapper/modder!
•Try to make complex story.
•Continue!

I really enjoyed this mod. It had really cool feature and excellent play. It is the first half-life mod I ever played and really if it were not for this mod I would not be typing this message right now. I really enjoyed it and I think anyone who has the time, should definitely play it.

What’s good in the mod:
Combat was a good challenge, even at medium difficulty.
Health and ammo was never scarce, and just when you were running low on either one, the mapper
was conscientious to supply some.
Some of the fights were very memorable. The use of Hunters was more than expected, but didn’t feel inappropriate.
Especially at the ending part, with the multiple groups of hunters that spawn in every time you destroy the crystal things.What I didn’t like:
The zombie chase scene in Ravens was not that fun, and kind of a chore to figure out.
The story was kind of vague, you’re trying to get a crystal that the Combine take? from you.
The early temple part in the first level felt kind of bare.
I would some times get intense lag spikes, slowdown when I defeated a Strider.Conclusion:
An interesting mod, that has some nice combat scenes, though the story is kind of hard to notice.
Play it later, this will take a good 2-3 hours of your time.Note:
I hope to see more from Crowbar.

I’d say this is the perfect Play It Later rate. Overall, is a junction of different maps made for different competitions here at RTSL.com. The only new map is the last one in here.

The fact that this mod is made from different maps make it quite odd to play. You know, I remember the first 3 maps because I played them in those competitions, but in here as a whole mod, they still feel quite disconnected from each other, and the connection parts between each map are just strange and don’t feel real.

The gameplay is quite like an arena combat game. So you can expect to have heavy firefights against the CMB most of the time. About the story plot, I think it’s just bland, as I never understood the story purpose of the mod itself.

The last map is the one I liked most. As it was interestingly built and laid out in a vertical arena combat design. I had a glitch in the last battle against the Hunters in the part where you have to destroy the crystal, in there the CMB walls blocked all 4 doors so I have to no clip that section in order to complete the game.

In conclusion is an OK work. It entertains you in an OK proportion. And it offers old HL2 classic combat. So play it if you want to beat some CMB ass. I appreciate “crowbar” for realizing this work, as some modders never work again with the maps they’re already created and are even fewer those who integrate them into a complete modification like this one.

Sorry guys but I just wasn’t impressed with the overall concept. I didn’t previously get too excited for the map’s styles the last time I played them, and now it’s not working once again for me. Plus i thought the difficulty was OTT sometimes -> but to a point of frustrating me (and my skills lol) rather than entertaining me with a challenge.

I’m with Phillip here and maybe a little more so thinking about it. I dunno, perhaps it’s just personal preference? I see many here DO like this mod, but I didn’t. Not my cuppa tea sorry crowbar 🙁

Yes you can very easily transfer these difficulty settings (and modify them) to the main game.
To do that do the following:
1. Go to the cfg folder of the mod and copy the skill.cfg and skill_episodic.cfg files.

2. Then go to your Episode Two folder (Half-Life 2/ep2) and create a folder named “custom”.

3. Inside that folder create another folder with whatever name you want, for example “difficultyRebalance”.

4. Inside that folder create a folder named “cfg”. Put the skill.cfg and skill_episodic.cfg inside that folder.

5. But you are not done yet. Copy the autoexec.cfg from the cfg folder of the mod and put it in your ep2 cfg folder. I forgot what the exact content of that file is, so better check if it has things you don’t want.

6. I think you also need to put “exec autoexec” into your config.cfg file. Or write that into the console every time you start the game.